Nonnie Jules

I wrote about being a member of an author’s book club as part of my series covering beginning and building an author platform. I wanted to go back to the subject to discuss my own membership in more detail. What I’m working on here is to help both new and prospective members with how to get the most out of membership through involvement.

I’ve been a VIP member of Rave Reviews Book Club since late last year. This club is based mainly on supporting independent authors from a group perspective – strength in numbers provides greater reach for everyone. As such involvement through a minimum of four reviews of member books per year – which is quite reasonable – is a requirement to having books listed in the club catalog. Other involvement is highly encouraged.

So at it’s most basic level, RRBC is about reviews for authors. But there are expectations for the whole process as indicated in the club rules. Reviews for new authors are hard to obtain so getting honest ones is very important. Being in the club catalog is a member’s gateway to getting reviews from other club members.

It’s very important to note that membership means you are part of a group of authors promoting each other. Involvement brings returns from other members in a variety of ways – retweets, tweets, reblogs, reviews, etc.

Here’s how I approach being a member. I’m actively working on my main requirement of reviewing four other member books this year to remain an active member with my book on the member catalog. Otherwise, I can’t do everything so I do what I can. I participate in the PushTuesday events and recruiting days. I also retweet other members via our Twitter hashtags. I participate in chats whenever my schedule allows. Lastly, I host blog tours for other members whenever I can.

In return, I’ve received a number of gracious reviews that were invaluable for promotion and gaining insights about my writing. I’ve received lots of tweet support for my blog and my book. I’ve also encountered a number of interesting, talented authors from whom I’ve learned various writing-related tips. Overall, the club does more for me than I can do for myself. I look forward to adding a few more books to the catalog as well as reading more books from my fellow members.

But wait! There’s more available for club members! RRBC has just started an internet radio network to further promote members. This is incredible for all of us since we have the opportunity to gain professional experience doing live interviews. Likewise, the network increases the club’s reach and thus the exposure of every member.

And speaking of professional opportunity, involvement in club activities teaches us about professionalism. Being kind, gracious, patient and thankful are all traits authors need to successfully work with the public. This means that involvement with various activities where the prize is some sort of special spotlight is a treat for the winner. I’ve had the humble opportunity to be the winner of a PushTuesday and Member of the Week. These aren’t just handed out for being a member but rather for involvement. If others are chosen, then I congratulate them or retweet those sentiments. Learning professionalism teaches you to interact with readers and the club is a great place to learn this trait.

So why is all this involvement important? In the digital age it’s hard to promote by yourself. What makes it harder is that books don’t sell from advertising but rather from word of mouth. In the world of social media, self-promotion is quickly ignored – though must do this regardless. However, promoting others gets you promoted. This is important since books mainly sell by word of mouth. When you promote others, that’s word of mouth. With a club like RRBC you get a lot of word of mouth. The more involved you are the more the club of more than five hundred members is behind you.

I hope this helps any new or prospective members. These are just my views on being a helpful member and gaining the most benefit you can from membership. I encourage other members to relate their views of what it means to be involved and how it benefits them. The main idea is to think of yourself second and others first and you will receive more club support. I’ll share more in the near future about my own expectations and what I’ve received.

Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments section. Sign up for my Archer’s Aim Digest mailing list to receive the forthcoming edition of my newsletter with announcements about upcoming releases and events (and there’s some big news this month). Want to be listed in The Bow of Destiny credits? Join the Insider Team to share upcoming links and receive inside information. Either way, you’ll be the first to have news about my books, especially some free offers this summer related to the upcoming release of The Bow of Destiny, the first novel of The Bow of Hart Saga. You’ll also receive a free coupon to download my e-book short story, The Black Bag, as well as July’s free e-book: Recommended Reading for Authors!

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These three authors are wonderful clients of 4WillsPublishing, a publishing House dedicated to helping authors put out the best written, and marketing products for their literary work, possible.

This tour is a surprise tour, which means the authors knew nothing about it until it started! This is our gift to them to show our appreciation of their work, their dedication to putting out the great written word, and also a big THANK YOU for allowing us to showcase and promote them.

This is a 3 Author/7 Day/40 Blog Tour! Yes, for 7 days, The Religion, Rage & w(R)iting Blog Tour will sit on 40 blogs! And for 7 days, on 40 blogs, you will get a tiny tid-bit of something related to Religion, so that you never forget OUR LADY OF VICTORY, the rage of people, such as that displayed in SHADOW OF THE DRILL, and w(R)iting tips to help you POLISH YOUR PROSE! (Click on each book title to find out more about it)

This will be a fun tour, an inspirational tour, a delightful tour which has been designed to enlighten you, entertain you and help you overcome those feelings which bind us daily and keeps us from growing from point A to point B. Each day as you stop by each blog to find out what bit of inspiration is being shared, we ask that you take the time to leave a comment for the authors, visit their blogs, Follow them on Twitter and FB, and last but not least, please PICK UP A COPY OF THEIR BOOKS! They are all 5 star reads! And this tour wouldn’t be complete, if you didn’t check out The Religion, Rage & w(R)iting Book Trailer! (Please note: these bits and quotes were not taken from the author’s books).

“The worst moment in my life was when I was seven years old and I discovered that there was a such thing as racism. You don’t know you’re different until someone lets you know.” ~Sanjeev Bhaskar

Thank you for joining us on this stop of our tour. We are grateful to our host for allowing us to share with this audience and we hope that we have left you wanting more! To follow this tour, please visit the 4WillsPublishing EVENTS page for the complete tour line-up and to also register to win a SURPRISE pack of books as well as a stint on WHO’S ON THE SHELF WITH NONNIE JULES! Now, on to the next stop!!!!

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Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links on this page are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Privacy Policy

This blog does not share personal information - including email addresses - with third parties nor do I store any information about your visit to this blog other than to analyze and optimize your content and reading experience through the use of cookies (which is a WordPress.com function and not mine).
You can turn off the use of cookies at any time by changing your specific browser settings.
I am not responsible for republished content from this blog on other blogs or websites without our permission.
This privacy policy is subject to change without notice and was last updated on July 2nd, 2015. If you have any questions feel free to contact me directly here: ph at phsolomon.com (replace the "at" with @, it's written that way to avoid spammers).